That might sound concerning, considering the Second Age setting of The Rings of Power mostly isn’t present in The Hobbit and the main trilogy texts Amazon has access to. Because Amazon has the rights only to the book trilogy and The Hobbit, the studio had to do some finagling, using mainly references from those texts and the lengthy appendices at the end of The Return of the King (specifically Appendix B: “The Tale of Years”), working closely with the famously protective Tolkien estate to make sure nothing contradicted the text of works like The Silmarillion or the 12-volume The History of Middle-earth. Where is all this information coming from?Īmazon went through a lot of concepts and pitches for new Lord of the Rings material before settling on this story. It’s a time when elves and men are still buddies and the Valar raised the mythic island of Númenor from the sea (more on this later). Now that you’re equipped with this history: The Rings of Power is set during the Second Age, long before any hobbit-related escapades we’re familiar with. It is an age of peacetime, the Age of Men, when the dominion of the other races across Middle Earth came to an end. So begins the Fourth Age, which starts after the end of The Lord of the Rings. Almost three thousand years after the One Ring was lost in some nondescript riverbed, the artifact is discovered by a hobbit named Déagol-Sméagol’s cousin-accelerating the events that lead to the formation of the Fellowship and, finally, the destruction of the ring. The Third Age begins right afterward, charting the downfall of the human king Isildur and the rise of general unrest in Middle Earth. In response, the elves and men form their so-called “Last Alliance,” and the Second Age concludes with a climactic battle that destroys Sauron’s physical form (but, critically, not his spirit), the key events of which you see depicted in the prologue of The Fellowship of the Ring film. The One Ring would control the other bands and their bearers, bringing them under the sway of Sauron, previously the most cunning and powerful of Morgoth’s servants. The Second Age picks up right afterward, when Middle Earth is putting itself back together and Sauron, Morgoth’s feared lieutenant, tricks the elves into forging their rings of power, binding them with his secret One Ring. These events are chronicled in The Silmarillion, Tolkien’s contextual companion to The Lord of the Rings, finished and published posthumously by his son, Christopher. The First Age begins with the awakening of the elves on Arda (the name of the planet that Middle Earth, the central-most continent, exists on) and ends with the “Great Battle,” during which Morgoth, the world’s first Dark Lord, was overthrown by an alliance of elves, men, and immortal gods called the Valar. The history of Middle Earth is separated into a number of ages, each made up of some thousands of years, and each ending with some near-catastrophic world-changing event. If you’re familiar with The Lord of the Rings, you know that the Fellowship’s journey to destroy Sauron’s One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom took place in something called the “Third Age.” Middle Earth has been around for a very long time, and its people-elves, dwarves, hobbits, men, etc.-are very diligent at keeping track of current events. Here’s everything you need to know: What year is it? It’s the dawn of the Second Age: A dark power is slumbering, but not for long. The Rings of Power begins long before the likes of Frodo, Sam, and Aragorn were even a figment of the universe’s imagination. But if you’re strapped in for a return to the series that Peter Jackson so famously brought to life at the beginning of the millennium, this show will look markedly unfamiliar. ![]() There are elves, rings, and Dark Lord So-and-sos. Fans of the books and the movies have been waiting years for a return to the beloved fantasy world, but The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power might not be what they’re expecting. Tolkien’s Middle Earth is imminent-not unlike a certain dark sorcerer’s rise to power. ![]() I smell it in the air.” Twenty-one years later, Amazon’s mega-expensive series set within J.R.R. “The world is changed,” Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel said in the prologue of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
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